Work, Organization, and Management
Essay Topic: “As workplace technology becomes more sophisticated, workers are likely to lose important skills”. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
There has been a shift in the demand for labour and worker skills with the emergence of new technologies. Questions over the rise of technology and automation killing jobs and reducing skills of workers have been increasing with no right answer or possible solution to the same. Whether technology will certainly result in a drastic decline of jobs and skills is a matter of time, at least until advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence and automation of jobs reach their full potential. Considering the modern workplace, this paper will argue about how technological improvements might actually help reskill and upskill of workers. While the use of technology does create certain differences between manual and work-intensive labour, the same does not necessarily mean that the demand for skills involved with routine, non-routine, and cognitive tasks will reduce or die due to automation. If anything, advancements in technology will create new opportunities for improving individual skills, alongside learning and building new ones (Ra, Shrestha, Khatiwada, Yoon & Kwon, 2019). This paper will focus on the impact of technology on the skills of workers and provide evidence of how technology is associated with skill-shift.
One of the primary benefits of integrating technology in the workplace is to reduce effort, increase output, improve overall productivity, and focus on capital gains. With automation driving productivity in most huge enterprises today, the loss of manual labour has not been quite evident. According to research, the post-industrialisation period has witnessed a huge increase in the demand for low-skilled jobs, owing to productivity and consumption on a large-scale (Cirillo, 2016). The entry of automation in most business sectors has eased routine and non-routine tasks, therefore allowing organisations to expand their operations, focus on innovation, and drive productivity by creating employment opportunities. On one hand where technological improvements have greatly reduced manual effort, these advancements have also led to generating similar jobs in large numbers. For instance, in the case of a factory worker, one may argue that the worker’s job and skills may be jeopardised with the increasing use of high-tech machines and automated jobs that do not require manual labour anymore.
Automated tasks as a result of technology will certainly displace the skills of workers by creating a skill-gap, but that does not mean that the worker’s skill will not remain of any use in labour-intensive tasks. Evidence suggesting a huge rise in the demand for low-skilled wage workers like manual labourers has increased even with the rise in technology at industries and business organisations. Beaudry, Green, and Sand (2016) have argued that certain characteristics like moral skills and psychological perspectives that humans bring to organisational workforce cannot be taken over by robots and other forms of artificial intelligence in the future. Despite the prospects of bots being able to perform most tasks that humans are capable of, the prominence of the same in workplaces seem doubtful. Workers will still be required for moral support, and will be involved in considering moral and ethical obligations in key decision-making processes.
The demand for other skills like analytical, cognitive, communication, soft-skills, and knowledge-intensive proficiencies is expected to increase in the future. Where organisations in the digital age will vigorously compete to thrive and stay ahead in the competition, stronger will be the relevance and demand for worker skills and knowledge (International Labour Organisation, 2018). Knowledge-based skills combined with soft skills and interpersonal abilities will still be required in business environments that are technologically-driven. A huge reversal in the demand for specific skillsets is expected with the rise of technology in the future. However, automation and workplace technology have been considered as complementing the tasks that humans can perform, and not perform the entire task itself. According to Frey and Osborne (2017), technology resulting in automation of tasks will continue to challenge a number of organisational prospects and will hamper analytical judgement, critical thinking, and flexibility that are usually required in decision-making. Therefore, the argument that bots will entirely take over human jobs is flawed. It is certain that there will be a skill-shift in the future, resulting in workers getting displaced from their existing positions and tasks.
Skill displacement is likely to arise with technological advancements at the workplace, especially in sectors like Information Technology (Falk & Biagi, 2016). One can conclude that the advent of workplace technology will kill jobs, but will not cause workers to lose skills. With the chance of upskilling and reskilling, manual workers and employees will have opportunities for promotion, career development, and professional growth. A more worrying concern would be work and organisational management where workers may have to be trained or retrained, mentoring programs must be implemented, and work culture must be adaptable with improvements in workplace technology. On one hand where educational institutions may not be able to bridge the supply and demand gap for skillsets in the future (National Audit Office, 2018), a lot rests on the abilities of organisations and departments like Human Resources to rely on mentoring and training workers.
A lack of research suggesting the takeover of human tasks by robots in the future is an iteration of the fact that the extent to which automation will be adopted in organisations is still unclear. A study by Arntz, Gregory, and Zierahn (2016) estimates that only 9% jobs are at risk of automation, a figure which is very negligent considering the demand for new and sophisticated worker skills. Over the years, a rise in income and wages is expected to consequently increase the demand for goods and services, resulting in improved standards of living. When technology-driven and innovative strategies will be put to use to meet these demands, the same will eventually result in the creation of technology-induced jobs. Businesses will look at increasing productivity and performance by adapting organisational cultures and work practices to cope with the improvements in workplace technology(Sousa & Wilks, 2018). Hence, technology will also lead to a net increase in employment as businesses try and focus more on efficiency, reducing effort, and using worker skills to create jobs for increasing productivity at large scales.
Certain tasks when automated will allow great flexibility and freedom for organisations to focus on skill re-transfer, where workers can be utilised for new and technology-driven tasks. Skills pertaining to knowledge management and sharing highlights the importance of low and high skilled workers, compelling businesses to adopt skill-based systems (Okay-Somerville & Scholarios, 2018). Skill-based learning and working environments will not only provide opportunities to workers to build and improve firm-specific skills but also empower knowledge management and sharing amongst workers. Apart from a broader set of skills, employees of the future will also need to focus on sub-skills that can add more value to organisations. Also, for innovation and transformations to take place, it is imperative for businesses to primarily emphasize skills, specifically knowledge-intensive skills, creating a workplace culture of learning and unlearning.
Technology has advanced by manifold over the last few decades. The increasing use of workplace technology has raised concerns over the relevance of worker skills in the digital age, and eventual employment risks that may displace low and middle-skilled workers. However, the essay has argued that regardless of technological improvements and entry of artificial intelligence in the workplace, human workers and their skills can never be fully lost. There is ample evidence that has suggested an increase in labour-intensive and highly-skilled taskforce, as compared to theories of deskilling workers (Eldor & Harpaz, 2015). Advancements in technology will result in the automation of routine and analytical tasks that will make room for better and bigger employment opportunities. However, Human Resources Management challenges may arise in the process of meeting the supply and demand skill gap at organisations, while businesses adopt a human capitalist approach and focus on skill development through mentoring and training.
The human capital theory emphasizes on economic growth in the post-industrialist capitalist society through training and education (upskilling). Studies on firm-specific human capital have found further implications on the labour-intensive market (Bresnahan, T., & Yin, P.-L. (2016). While businesses are attempting to invest in upskilling of workers through mentoring and training programs, the efficient use of resources to upskill workers will result in more skillful professionals for organisations. According to Van De Voorde and Beijer (2015), Human Resource Management practices that are skill-intensive help create organisational culture with high levels of job satisfaction and greater skill utilization. Because the coming of technology is argued to displace skills of workers, the assertion of studies based on the human capital perspective that effective skill utilisation with the help of HRM can have profound effects on job satisfaction and skill development of employees. Therefore, worker skills are not exactly threatened with the use of workplace technology but the sustenance of which highly depends on how organisations and HRM can focus on employee satisfaction and well-being. While there might be ample jobs available and new employment opportunities created, the immense pressure on hiring highly-skilled workers puts pressure on HRM professionals (Okay-Somerville, B., & Scholarios, D. (2018). Skill-oriented HRM has been widely explored for its implications to manage organisational workforce in the future, primarily due to aspects of adaptability and flexibility that HRM practices bring to the workplace.
A study by Dauth, Findeisen, Südekum & Wößner (2017) was performed on German workers to examine whether robots in the future will impact manufacturing jobs. It was found that while robots did threaten manufacturing jobs, the loss was compensated with additional jobs created in other sectors. The loss of employment was identified to be completely offset, and the same was found to have no link with the employment decline in Germany. Instead, the destruction of jobs was due to a decline in the new manufacturing jobs that were available in the labour market. The wages of workers may drop due to robots performing routine tasks and displacing workers from manufacturing jobs. However, exposure to robots did not threaten the jobs or skills of workers, but instead, the workers remained employed at the same place but in different roles (Dauth et al., 2017).
With technological advancements at the workplace, the demand for specific skills has increased and will continue to increase in the future as well. Information and Communication Technology strategies have become popular amongst organisations that operate on highly-complex tasks and therefore, require and demand a highly-skilled workforce. The emphasis on skills with the emergence of the digital age has encouraged a culture of adaptability, where the ambiguous prospects of workplace technology will have to be dealt with solely by focussing on skilled labour or workforce. Organisations that utilise ICT technologies have not only witnessed drastic improvements in productivity, efficiency, and value creation but also adopted a human capital approach by investing in skilled workforce. Additionally, primary focus the businesses on innovation in the future will make room for a plethora of specific skills, which will further be demanded and employed in public and private sectors. This skill-biased technological change directs to a human capital perspective, where people with lower and primary education will face employment challenges, as opposed to those who have attained at least higher education. Investment in education, training, and skill development will be necessitated in the coming years, as more and more businesses begin to adopt human capitalist approaches to employ skilled workers. While technological improvements in the field of robots and artificial intelligence are likely to cause job displacements and employment loss, the prospects of these technologies in creating new, improved and better employment opportunities cannot be ignored.
References
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